Wednesday, December 4, 2013

WIP: Ellyrian Reavers Part 1

Not bad so far, right? :) But there's no time to rest on my laurels! I want more!

Next in line in my army of High Elves project, is this pretty unit of Ellyrian Reavers, again from the fantastic box of Warhammer: Island of Blood. They will be a very nice addition since they are interesting miniatures and the first ones on horses for my army. I hope this doesn't go too long in time but with many projects at the same time, one never knows! Come with me, I hope you enjoy the process!

Each Ellyrian Reaver is made of three pieces, one for each side of the horse, and the head of the rider. The quality of the plastic is amazing.

Even so, the sculpt have minor flaws (as usual) so that the casts are easier. One example is this plastic between rein and neck of the horse which is a bit disturbing for me. Fortunately it is easily removed with a knife.

It's a little bit like sculpting (shaping, mainly), and the result is very good.

Obviously, as with all the other elves, the scales in the armours are too big for my taste. I followed my usual scale sculpting process to fill the rows in between scales. Check the Sea Guard or the Swordmasters for more info. After that, as usual, I washed the miniatures with water and soap, let them dry, and then I fixed the miniatures temporarily to some big corks. You might have noticed that I was trying to paint miniature and base altogether to save time. In this case, the bases will need some work because of the idea I have (I will talk about this later) and I won't be able to paint them together. So for now, corks and patafix.

After this, I prime them black. You might have noticed in the previous photos that one of the riders was already primed with black and white, and even had paint on him. That was because I used the guy in a painting demo, but I will prime him too.

And then I prime them white over the top. This gives me a general idea of where the light will be when following a zenithal lighting scheme.

The most common surface in these miniatures is the silver metals (armour, helmets, plates and scales). I will paint them in a dark colour to serve as base for the metallic paints, in this case, Dark Sea Blue.

Now I wash the scales with black and blue inks. This is different to what I did in other units, where I just outlined the shadows after painting the metallic scales. I think this will save me some time.

Once this is done on the scales, I basecoat everything with Boltgun Metal. On the scales I was careful to leave the dark colours of the recesses that work as outline.

Lights on the metallic parts are done with Mithril silver and then Metallic Medium from Vallejo. Check out where the lights are placed. Especially on the scale parts, because it is important to simulate the shines from a fixed position. Illuminating a line of scales more than the rest, increases realism.

Further shadows on the metallic parts will be done using airbrush and blue-green tones, as with all the elves. Let's show the process once again on the sword of the Ellyrian Reaver Harbinger (the one with the feathered helmet).

First thing is covering the metal that will not be painted, in this case, with some masking tape. Then airbrush with Turquoise on the part opposite to where the shine would be placed.

Deeper shadows with Dark Sea Blue, airbrushed.

Further down with a darker colour, in this case mixing some blue and green inks with the Dark Sea Blue.

Once satisfied with one side of the blade, we do the same on the other side, keeping in mind that shines on opposite blades should be on opposite places (as a general rule if we don't want to think too much about how metal would reflect light).

Once it's done, the only thing left for this metal would be to take off the masks and then outline carefully all the details.

As you can see I added the turquoise blue to all the cloths that will be painted in that colour. I will do that on all the other riders, I want to get a glimpse of the whole colour scheme before moving forward.